French polarity items #

The French negative words personne 'nobody', rien 'nothing', jamais 'never' and plus 'no more', typed by PolarityItem. They go back to the noun personne 'person', the Latin noun rem 'thing', Latin iam 'already' + magis 'more', and the comparative plus 'more' (Haspelmath A.9.2). The personne-series is used most often in direct negation with the preverbal particle ne, as in Je ne vois rien 'I cannot see anything', and also under indirect negation, Je doute que personne y réussisse 'I doubt that anybody will succeed in it', in comparatives, and in rhetorical questions and conditionals, si rien s'ébruite dans la presse 'if anything transpires in the media' (Haspelmath A.9.3). French is a non-strict negative concord language whose negator ne is optional before and after the negative word (van der Auwera and Van Alsenoy (32)), so the negative words carry the weak licensor that Spanish and Italian negative words carry. Clausal negation is in the sibling Negation.lean.

References #

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def French.PolarityItems.personne :

PolarityItem

personne 'nobody, anybody', as in Personne n'a jamais dit rien 'Nobody ever said anything', Je doute que personne y réussisse ([Has97] A68b, A69a).

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Instances For

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def French.PolarityItems.rien :

PolarityItem

rien 'nothing, anything', as in Je ne vois rien, under personne in Personne n'a jamais dit rien, in a rhetorical question, valait-il de lui rien sacrifier? 'would it be worth sacrificing anything for it?', and in a conditional ([Has97] A68, A66b, A67a).

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